


A Messy Process

by Bluspirit92



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Dark Crack, Non-Graphic Violence, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5564143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluspirit92/pseuds/Bluspirit92
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The name Spike is very appropriate. </p><p>Or: William the Bloody is a Hemalurge. A self-taught one. There was a lot of pain along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Messy Process

**Author's Note:**

> So this is probably the weirdest thing I've ever written. It's a crossover with the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. But it isn't necessary to have read them. It does help to have seen Buffy though.  
> If you've never read the books, the basics are: Hemalurgy is a type of magic. It involves the stealing of people's abilities. You take a piece of metal and pierce someone with it. Then you stick the same piece of metal in yourself to give yourself the skills of whoever you pierced. The effects vary based on the type and location of the metal. The perfect power for someone who kills people by driving railroad spikes into them. (this process is kind of gross and I'm not super descriptive, but still, be warned.)  
> I've taken some liberties in terms of how metal location effects the magic. In this fic, it doesn't really matter.  
> Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

The first time it happened, it was completely unexpected. He really seriously had never anticipated anything like this happening. The discovery was a complete accident. But then again, he had never done anything like this before, so how would he have guessed? It wasn’t like he’d been stabbing any people with railroad spikes when he was human. 

He had just thought it would be a poetic way to hurt them. Apparently he was never getting rid of his tendency towards the poetic. And the railroad spike had felt good in his hand. Right. He didn’t want to say it called to him, because he was getting rid of all that poetic shit, but it had felt perfect for him. The spike was iron. He would figure that out later, but it was important. He had just thought that spike through the head was some serious torture. Even Angelus would be impressed. Maybe. He was learning that Angelus was impressed by almost nothing. 

So he had found his victim, taken the railroad spike and shoved it through the man’s forehead. It had gone in beautifully. Crunching and squelching and only the thinnest line of blood coming from the hole. 

And such a rush of power. More than just the death and revenge. So much more. Like something inside the body had been released when the hole had been formed. Like something in William had woken up. Not his demon, not his soul, but still, something magic. 

The spike buzzed with power. His hands were shaking. He wanted that power so much. He had taken it, he had earned it, it was his now. And he needed to get it out of the spike. 

But he had no idea how. This was something completely different. Angelus and Darla had never talked about this magic in their lessons. Drusilla had never talked about it in her ramblings. It was his. It was new. 

He pulled the spike out. It took a little effort. He had really worked it in there, almost back to the other side of the man’s head. But it slipped free, smeared with blood and grey matter. And he felt the power slipping away slowly the longer it was outside the source. 

In what was both an incredibly stupid idea and the best decision he ever made, he took the spike and plunged it into his free hand. It went clean through, breaking all the little bones and popping veins but not letting the blood out. 

Strength poured through him, better than when he had been turned. Sure, he was better, stronger as a vampire, but this was more strength on top of that. He knew instinctively that this was the victim's strength. Stolen and given to him. He forgot to feel the pain from his hand. 

When he came home, Angelus pulled the spike from his hand and beat him. When the spike left, he could feel the power go with it and escape into the air. He never really had the chance to test out what he could do. But he would. This called for much more experimentation. 

\---

The second time, he did it on purpose. Still with next to no idea what this was, but he had been trying, so that counted for something. 

He took the girl and kept her alive, sticking her full of pins needles and spikes of all different sizes and types. He began to learn. 

When he put the iron spike through her arm and into his hand, he became stronger. This lasted as long as the spike was in him, so if he wanted to keep the strength, he would have to keep the spike. Maybe the hand wasn’t the best spot for the spikes. 

He wanted to put the spike through her stomach or heart, but he needed her for more tests. That would come last. He would only get one chance to do that with her. Sure, he could get others, but this one had lasted so long. She had strength. Maybe not as much physical strength as his first victim, but she was strong. He wanted that strength. 

When he put the tin spike through her eye and into his arm, he could see. His senses were so much better. He could hear things streets away, he could see each of the threads of the girl’s ruined dress, he could smell the bloody nose of the man almost a mile away. Everything was better, sharper. The girl’s heart pounding was like a thousand drums. He had been careful not to go any farther than her eye, not into her brain. 

When he put the copper spike into her foot, and then into his side, he remembered. He knew how to sew and knit and a thousand other things he had never learned. He had memories of cooking and cleaning and being hunted. He could see how this could be useful, but he didn’t want her memories in his head. He pulled the spike out immediately. 

When he put the zinc spike through her stomach and into his, he felt strong. Emotionally. Like he could outlast any torture. And then he looked at the torture he had done to her, and he cried. He felt terrible. He felt guilt for the first time since being turned. He tried to fix her, to help her, but he couldn’t put her guts back in her body. 

He learned to be very careful with zinc. 

\---

The next time, he planned it. He had brought spikes with him. He carried them everywhere with him now, but he had picked these especially. Two iron spikes and one copper. Strength and memory. 

He knew exactly where he was going to stick them in her, and where they would go in him. He knew what he was doing. These would be his first permanent spikes. 

He knew that taking the strength and memory of a slayer would be amazing. He was so looking forward to it. The fight was incredible, seeing exactly what he’d get if he won. And he did. He drank her blood, and it filled him with power, eased his hunger, but it was empty power compared to what the spikes would give him. 

He took the two iron spikes and and buried them deep in her stomach while she was still alive, listened to the little breath she gave as her insides were punctured. She had to be alive for this to work. It hadn’t been fun the fist time he tried it with a dead body, stabbing himself with no positive side effects. It made sense that dead bodies gave you nothing. Though killing someone in the process was fine. He did like that part. 

Then he pulled them out, appreciating her little weak gasp as they left. He liked to think she could feel the power leaving her. He took them and pushed them into him, one in each shoulder. So deep that they didn’t jut out of his arms at all. His bones snapped, but he’d heal. Right now he just wanted to feel the strength. Slayer strength. 

He picked up the copper spike in his shaking hands, pain burning him with every movement. He used his broken arms and new strength to push the copper into her forehead. In a mirror of his first discovery. Poetic, really. 

She died on this one. 

He had Drusilla press the spike in between his shoulder blades. She sang about rust and ruin, holes and tears, the whole time. He didn’t understand. 

But he knew this one would hold him together. He needed it to have permanent spikes. He knew that somehow. Maybe from the voice that whispered him ideas in the dark. 

He ignored it most of the time. Most of the time. 

\---

The next time, he was improvising. The chip had taken this magic away from him. It required hurting people, obviously, and that was no longer allowed. He wanted so badly to sink a spike into someone, to feel the give when he slipped it into them. The rush of power when it was returned to him. 

But he couldn’t. Not anymore. 

So he had learned some new tricks. Needles were his friend. Small enough to be unnoticed when they were used and not cause too much pain. He could keep hundreds of them in him and no one would notice. 

Still, they only gave him a very temporary burst of strength, a brief bit of memory, a small piece of knowledge, a tiny spark of emotion. It was good, the best he was going to get, but it wasn’t enough. 

A needle from each of the scoobies could make him feel better, and he probably did it more often than was healthy, probably triggered the chip far too often just to get those little shots of power. 

He still had the spikes from his first slayer, but he was used to them now. They weren’t enough either. 

The voice told him to drive a spike into his head, destroy the chip, to take tin spikes and put them through his eyes. It showed him a line of spikes all down his spine. It promised power. 

A copper needle from Giles told him more. And he’d never admit it, but he trusted Giles’s memories more than a voice in his head telling him to stab out his eyes. 

Giles’s memories told him that what he could do was called Hemalurgy and that it was evil, dark magic that the watchers, slayers, and everyone good wanted eliminated. 

He hoped Giles hadn’t noticed the needle prick. 

The needle told him that there were all different types of magic and Hemalurgy was only one, that the spike in his spine between his shoulders was his linchpin, keeping him together, keeping him alive. It told him that he was tearing reality every time he used his magic. 

He found he didn’t care. 

Reality wasn’t so fun anyway. And he was already bad and evil. The worst type of magic seemed a perfect fit for him. He’d just have to be extra careful around Giles. The watcher would kill him, rip the spike from his back it he knew what he could do. And having that linchpin removed, losing his power, really truly terrified him. 

\---

The next time, he needed it. Little needles of zinc, to remind him what a piece of shit he was, what he had done. To make him feel human, feel human guilt. To remind him how human he wasn’t, how wrong he was. 

Even with the soul, they were necessary. Some of them made him feel better, gave him strength, and he pulled those out immediately. He chose the time and people to prick very carefully, to get the effect he wanted. 

He got less careful with it. People wouldn’t really give a shit about the crazy vampire sticking needles in himself. So yes, Buffy caught him once and pulled the needle away from him, looked at him like he was insane and walked away. 

Yes, Giles caught him pressing a needle into the inside of his elbow like a drug and just shook his head sadly. He had done that on purpose, let the watcher catch him. He knew Giles killed Hemalurges. He knew Giles knew just what to remove to break him and turn him to dust. But the man did nothing. 

He left the needles inside him even after the effects had worn off. He was full of holes now. 

The voices were louder now. The First had blended with the first one in his head. He couldn’t distinguish them. That might have been his craziness, but maybe they were really the same. He didn’t know and it wasn’t like he could ask anybody. 

He wasn’t very careful with zinc anymore. 

\---

In the end, he didn’t do it. It was hard, but he didn’t. He knew he was going to die and he didn’t slide any iron or zinc into his skin. He didn’t touch the needles or spikes at all. 

He was pretty proud of that. He wasn’t proud of much, but that was something. 

Buffy’s hand on his gave him all the strength he needed, much better than an iron spike to the back. 

And when his skin burned away, he could feel the spikes in his shoulders melt. The molten iron poured down his arms. The copper spike, the linchpin, slid out smooth from between his shoulder blades, barely melting. 

And that was when he died. When the spike slipped from his back, when the linchpin stopped holding the holes he had ripped in himself together. 

He lost his power. And he found that he didn’t really care. He had all the strength he needed.


End file.
